


To Winterfell

by notparticularly



Series: The Flight of The Sun [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: a drabble that I originally posted on my tumblr, decided I liked it enough to post it here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:04:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notparticularly/pseuds/notparticularly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>I must go to Winterfell,</em> he thought, but he did not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Winterfell

**Author's Note:**

> As I say, this was originally posted on my Tumblr. Just a little insight into why everyone's favourite crannogman refrained from visiting his friend through the long summer and the peacetime before. Because we all know he knew what was coming.

_I must go to Winterfell,_ he thought, as he rode home alone with Ned, carrying nothing but meagre rations and a mewling babe. But he escorted his friend as far as Moat Cailin and waved him off as Northmen arrived to greet their lord, and Howland told himself that Ned would be too busy looking after the bairn and appeasing his lady wife to listen to the silly mutterings of a wounded bannerman.

 _I must go to Winterfell,_  he thought, when the Greyjoys had been defeated and the train of triumphant Northmen were riding hard for home. But he and his men left the Kingsorad at the Neck and returned to their bogs, and Howland told himself that wounds needed to be healed and hostages needed to be kept, and there was no time for the little crannogman and his unfounded worries at Lord Eddard’s side. 

 _I must go to Winterfell_ , he thought, when the second girl was born and in his dreams he saw she would be just like Lyanna. But instead he held his tongue and waited and watched in his bog bound stronghold, and Howland told himself that now of all days Ned would not want to be reminded of his promise.

 _I must go to Winterfell_ , he thought, as the boy was born and he dreamed him with wings instead of legs. But fever had struck the artificial islands of the crannogmen, and Howland placated his fitful dreams by telling himself that he had a loyalty to his own people. And besides, what should Lord Stark care about the forebodings of a bog devil?

 _I must go to Winterfell,_ he thought, as he awoke in a cold sweat with the sound of lady Catelyn's screams still ringing in his ears. But he looked in on his own children and sat by the  heart tree for a while, and Howland told himself that the danger was over and the youngest boy was born, and the lady would live. Besides, the shock of the birth would leave no room in Ned's head for dreams or prophecy.

 _I must go to Winterfell,_  he thought, as he saw a boy with the head of a wolf and a river running red with blood, and wished he had not seen the sobbing beauty with scales of blue-and-red crying tears of blood and holding a knife to the throat of a fool. He knew what it meant, but there was no one to tell now that Ned was gone, and Howland told himself that perhaps the dreams would break the habit of a lifetime and refrain from coming true.

 _I am too late,_  he thought, as he bid farewell to his children and waited silently in his floating fortress. As for what he waited for, the dreams had not yet shown him.


End file.
